For me, it’s the softness of her gaze. No sharp edges to her reaction. Even her shoulders aren’t weighted. This is what makes her beautiful — not what she sees, but how she sees it. From within.
I paint her to remind myself the same is true for all of us. How we navigate through this world is what people really see. We need to stay informed, of course, but the ugliness that gathers, and there is a lot, I don’t want that inside of me. So I soften my gaze. My eyes. My lips. My tongue. Relax my shoulders. Nothing for hatred and ill will to hang on. (Because aren’t those sharp edges so much easier to cling to?)
I suppose I only know it, because I was always given that soft place to land. My grandma’s lap, my mother’s heart. I see now that it was not only for me, but for them as well. A gift we must give each other. A gift we must give ourselves. I dare the morning and the mirror softly. No sharp edges in sight.
It’s not to say that we took our wounds seriously, but my mother never purchased designer Band-Aids. There were no cartoon characters or Disney royalty. In fact, I’m pretty sure they weren’t even the Band-Aid brand. Possibly Curad. Or simply flexible adhesive bandages. And often times, just a Kleenex (which was really only a facial tissue) and a piece of Scotch tape (most likely just tape).
No matter what she used, she did accomplish the main goal, which was just to return us to the gravel road, be it on bike or foot, skinned knees and all, as quickly as possible. No time for worry, or to go over the latest spill. Nor was there time to take pride in the survival. Who hadn’t fallen on Van Dyke Road? Her goal, I see now, was to keep me at play. Sometimes I would look up from the tattered tissue barely hanging on, as if to ask, “Really?” She would answer, “You think Phyllis Norton can do better? Go get in line.” We would laugh. And for this I will be ever grateful.
Injuries change from year to year. Some wounds go unseen. But the goal is to always keep pedaling. Keep walking. Keep living. Because it is where we were wounded that we will continue to find the joy.
A country and a lifetime away, I race out the morning door with a bit of Van Dyke Road still on my shoes.
I have no recollection of it, but my mother often reminded me, when I was a toddler I had very wide feet. She special ordered “little tiny boxes” for my chubby feet from Iverson’s shoes. She mentioned it as we browsed the Dayton’s shoe department many years later, looking for the long and narrow, as we both balanced out that way.
Who would have thought you could have two completely different situations with the same feet? It’s with all of living, I suppose, you just have to keep learning.
The truth is, I don’t even remember what I was trying to get through when I painted the “Nothing here I can’t rise above” woman. I’m sure it felt unsurpassable at the time, and yet… here I am, giving her (me) the new responsibility of rising above, again.
We never finish. And I guess you could look at that as a problem, or the gift that it is — another chance to rise up. Another chance to stand tall, on the once wide, now narrow feet that carry me strong. They remind me again and again, with each step that says, “What haven’t you gotten through?”
Years from now, I will look back and wonder why I wrote this today. Smiling. Higher still.
Gloria sat at the reception desk. I was in the next cubical. I was young and impressionable — and also eager to make one. Of course that youth made me think that I could do anything, and I suppose that’s why I gravitated towards Gloria — she was also a believer. Some of it was a bit fantastical, like the aliens building the pyramids and ghosts stealing her underpants while she slept, but that didn’t deter me, because she also said things that made complete sense to me — like when I would come to her in near defeat, telling her that “they” told me a certain project couldn’t be done. Her reply was always this, “Well, then you’ll make two.” And I always did.
I mention it now because France doesn’t celebrate Mother’s Day on the same day as the United States. It’s a few weeks later — this Sunday to be exact. Of course Mother’s Day is hard for me. I miss my mom so much. And now, I not only have to get through one day, but two. Even saying it, I see Gloria’s smiling face, and I have to join her. Of course it’s hard, but we were built to do hard things. To live the unlivable, bear the unbearable, and believe ever in the unbelievable. And I do!
So on this Thursday before, I change my mind and think, not that I have to, but that I get to! And if ever a mother deserved two holidays it would be mine. My heart may feel the squeeze of all that love, but I will celebrate. Twice.
She was the first to notice, the waitress in Stillwater, Minnesota. I have worn these earrings every day for a couple of years — the outline of the Sainte Victoire mountain. She brought the check to the table and asked, “What mountain is that?” I beamed, for me of course, but for her as well — being curious, paying attention. “It’s the Sainte Victoire,” I replied, “in Aix en Provence where we live.” And the conversation began, all because she was alive, awake!
These earrings represent home. Heart. Courage. Strength. They are the mountains I have, can, and will continue to climb daily. What made her, of all people, notice? Even in France, no one has asked about them. But she did. Maybe she was climbing her own mountain. Maybe she was asking her legs to carry what her heart just couldn’t bear at the moment. Or maybe she just liked them. And that’s enough too. The thing is, she asked the question. A specific question.
We get lazy I think. Uninterested. We settle on the “how are you?”s and think we did enough. But is it? Is it enough? Is it enough to just pass through each other’s lives? Without learning? Without caring?
Two years of climbing were wiped away in just a few brief seconds, and I was happy! It really takes so little. So I tell myself, I tell you, be curious, pay attention, — it’s not too much to ask.
“We just save all our good dreaming for the daytime,” she said, as I sat with my mother at the breakfast table, each of us offering up the nightmare from the wee hours before. We’d laugh through the fog of the ones we were still in, eat our breakfast, wash our faces, and begin again.
Smarter people have tried to figure out why we dream what we do. It’s funny, even when you know they aren’t real, when you know they didn’t happen, the feeling from it can remain for minutes, for hours, some even longer. Oh, feelings…
So when I have a good one, a good dream at night, well, that is something to be celebrated! And it happened two nights ago. It was only a brief visit to my grandma’s house, walking in with all of my cousins. Grandma Elsie said she had a surprise for us. Past the kitchen, round the corner, into the living room. A sea of Christmas presents. Presents of red and green piled higher than the tree that still tried to blink its way through. Higher than the television that played Rudolph at full volume. Higher than the smell of tobacco from Grandpa’s pipe that lingered in a Christmas color haze on the ceiling. Higher than my heart had ever reached in this farm house of theirs.
It’s probably too easy to interpret as all the gifts they gave us. But that’s what I’m going to do.
Still high from the night, we got coffee and went antique shopping in Arizona. My Valentine bought a beautiful necklace for me. Of course I had dressed for the occasion, (the occasion of a new day) — my mother had taught me that too. The woman behind the counter helped me with the clasp and told me I looked like a model. There I was, with the one I love, in mid compliment, high again. It’s true, what my mother said. Even after the best night-dream I’ve had in a very long time, the life I am living is even better.
I didn’t ask them who they voted for, where they came from, or if they went to church on this Sunday morning. Because weren’t we all actually in one, a church, as we hiked the trails of the Catalina State Park? Right down to the organ pipes of the Saguaro cactus.
They wanted me to take a picture of their group, with the mountain and the cactus, and their accomplishment of the hike. We only knew each other because we shared the same dusty earth. And wasn’t that enough? Enough for them to easily hand over their phones to me, a stranger, yet at the end of the same path. We smiled under the same brilliant sun, perhaps all wishing it could always be this way, and we walked with a bit of the prayer still clinging to our shoes.
I played no music on this hike. I listened only to the sounds of my feet in the gravel. It could have been on VanDyke Road, or in Aix en provence. I smiled. The warmth of their phones still clinging to my palms, and the words of John Lennon ringing in my head, “…I am not the only one…”.
We were just starting out. Not making headlines, so we made them for ourselves. Walking into our collective workspaces, we would announce each other. I had just sold my first piece of art. I entered his photo lab/living room. He shouted joyfully, “Local girl makes small splash in medium size pond!”
I would go on to sell much bigger pieces. More expensive. Even “across the pond” as they say. But the joy has never changed. To be seen, I suppose, for any size ripple, is heart-tickling.
Not much has changed, (and I pray it never will), from that five year old girl in one of the 10,000 lakes of Minnesota, trying to get my mother’s attention from shore. Dazzling her not with tricks, but joy. I’m still doing that. Because that’s what would have impressed her. What did impress her. The fun I was having.
I have a name for it now — joie de vivre — the simple joy in living your life. That’s all she wanted for me. That’s all I want for myself, forever, and for everyone. But I know we mostly have to find it from within. I don’t sell a painting every day, but that doesn’t keep me from going to the studio. Each day, I wade in, summon the strength from my belly, never waiting an hour after eating (who could possibly wait?), and I giggle my arms into the air, and know why I am alive!
Grandma Elsie would have known the word. She was all Swedish. But I didn’t learn it until yesterday. Oh, I knew the act, but now I know how to call it by name — Fika — “A moment to slow down and appreciate the good things in life, like coffee or something to eat with friends.”
And isn’t it something to be called by name!
When I think of it, when I hear it, and of course I still do, there was a bit of a gravel and a giggle to the way my Grandma said my name. There was joy in the long “o” (almost oh!) of Jodi. That has remained in my heart’s ear all of these years. Maybe we never get to repay the gifts we are given in their time. But that’s no reason to stop trying. When I hear my friends talk about her now, even friends who never physically met her, it’s clear that they know her from the stories told. They don’t say “your grandma,” — they say “Grandma Elsie.” We have conversations about her. They use her name. They see her image. And the gravel and giggle remain strong. Nearly on Swede.
I hope she can hear the love in that. I think she can. I think she can taste the lefsa that my friend made for me. She can see the book on Scandinavian Gatherings that they gave to me. She sits in the not so empty chair at the table we share, and she feels full. She feels the love. I know that I do.
I have been given so much. I could shy away and say that I’m not worthy. I could be embarrassed. Uncomfortable even. That doesn’t sound like any fun. That doesn’t sound like an Elsie thing to do. So I will just be grateful. Be happy. Enjoy it!!!! This joy, I will call it by name.
I want to hold her – this little girl that sits in front of me. Tiny tears cling to her eyelashes, knowing that if they fall, so will the secret — the one she kept, mostly from herself. One salty drop lands upon her thigh, and she says she had told her mother that she didn’t want to have a babysitter anymore. Not this one anyway. But she couldn’t tell her why. She couldn’t say that this young woman frightened her. Wanted her to do bad things. Dirty things. She couldn’t say that she took her behind the barn, (where nothing good ever happened.) I suppose that’s what they always count on, that you won’t be able to say anything. And what she couldn’t say then, she says to me now. She tells me. And I want to hold this little girl. Pick her up. Wipe away tears and replace them with promises. But she has already grown. She has already peaked only bangs above covers during sleepless nights. She has already learned to pocket the secret and dilute it with morning’s light. Learned to take care of her little sisters. No one else would watch them but her. She has already grown into a woman who carries her own children. Who carries me.
Maybe there always comes a time when the lines become blurred. For mothers and daughters. Sisters. Friends. When we’re all just little hearted girls, trying to hold on, trying to let go, daring both. Trusting each other with tears and stories.
I trusted my mother. And she trusted me. It would be easy for the story to end there, but it can’t. I won’t let it. Not for me. Nor you. Not for any little girl, no matter what her age. We must be the sisters who keep them safe. Tuck them in with stories of hope and joy, of kindness and progress and freedom and learning…so heads and hearts remain above covers — all night long, and all the days after.
I wander in and out, around every barn. I am safe because of her. I reach out my hand, so you can feel the same.
